How To Drive A Stake Through The Heart Of The Time Vampires – Part Two

Nowadays, a huge time vampire and one of my big pet peeves is that stupid cell phone everybody in America seems to be surgically attached to. How in the world can anyone carry on an intelligent face-to-face conversation with someone or get anything of importance done with that thing ringing every few minutes? And whatever happened to common courtesy?

Has the entire population come to the conclusion that it’s OK to carry a cell phone into restaurants and seminars and disturb everyone simply because their life is a mess and they have no control of their time?

You Can Judge A Person’s Bank Account By Their Cell Phone Habits

Would you carry a two-year-old into a seminar and sit there while he cries? Would you take a barking dog to a movie? Would you turn on a radio at a wake? Would you have a loud conversation with a friend in the front pew at a church service? Is a screeching cell phone answered by some idiot with a loud voice any different from any of these?

Wake Up, America! Cell Phone Usage In Public Places Where Quiet Is Expected Is Rude!

I recently attended a Dan Kennedy seminar. Dan imposes a fine of $100 for a cell phone ringing in class and he confiscates the phone for the duration of the class. Only one ringing phone disrupted the entire three-day event. I think the penalty for cell phone disruptions in my classes just went up.

Forget the ill-manners for a moment and consider what being a slave to a cell phone does to you. It’s easy to see how much time it costs you. Just look at your phone bill. But I know, you want to stay in touch and maintain control. You don’t want to miss anything; you want to be available in case you’re needed. Well here’s a tip for you, Buckwheat…

The More You Allow People To Call You, The More People Will Call You!

It’s just that simple. If you train people to interrupt your life, that’s exactly what they’ll do. If you make them understand you won’t be available at the beck and call, and amazing thing will happen…

You’ll get a lot less calls! This is really no different than the system I described earlier about having a secretary prescreen your calls first. In this case, the prescreener is the voicemail on your cell phone.

I have a cell phone and I love it. What a handy tool. It saves me time looking for a phone, it stores phone numbers, it takes messages, it saves long distance charges, heck I can even get email on it. But I can assure you I’ll never wear out the ringer on it because it’s rarely on unless I’m making outbound calls.

That’s really the reason I even have a cell phone at all/ To make outbound calls when and if I choose, not to let every vampire on the planet call me in the middle of a meal or conversation so I can stop and cater to their usually worthless time-wasting problem.

I know I’m not going to change anyone’s habits here. After all, these are just words on paper. How important could they be? I suspect you’ll read what you want, throw it aside, continuing answering your cell phone every time it rings and nothing will change. So be it.

But just ask yourself how many wealthy people you know who are cell phone slaves. Do you really think Bill Gates or Ted Turner or Donald Trump carry around a cell phone in the on position?

If you could make a pact with yourself to free up just two extra hours from the phone each week and spend those hours driving around looking for vacant, ugly houses or making offers on pretty ones, I bet your annual income would increase.

Let’s see…

Two hours each week equals eight hours a month. That’s enough time to prescreen around eight sellers, visit their houses, and make offers. You know, those deals sitting on your desk waiting for you to get off the phone and act upon. Since these houses are prescreened before you go, you should buy about one out of three. Heck, let’s be conservative and say you’ll only get two out of the eight.

According to a poll at our annual convention, the average profit per deal, cash and equity, was $27,000 per house. So that’s $54,000 you made during this period. Sure, you’ll have more than eight hours in the deals by the time you get the sold, but the point is you wouldn’t have the deals in the first place without freeing up the eight hours.

So if you can make an extra $54,000 each month (and remember these were conservative numbers) by spending eight hours less on the phone, that adds up to…

$648,000 Extra Each Year!

Now ask yourself, has anyone called you lately whom you’d spend half a million dollars to talk to?

But I know, all this doesn’t apply to you because your calls are important and you’re different and this change in habit would require little pain. But hey, I tried. I read somewhere…

The Less I Do, The More I Make

Perhaps it should be, the less I talk on the phone, the more time I have to make money.

Well it looks like I’ve taken up enough space in this newsletter and I only covered one time vampire. I’ll have to continue this discussion in the next issue. In the meantime, keep a stake handy and don’t get far from some good, smelly garlic. Perhaps you can dip your cell phone in it so you won’t be able to stand it that close to your nose. Gotta go, my phone is ringing… or not.